Op-Ed by Nikki Haley - Spending is Out of Control. And Democrats and Republicans Share the Blame.

USA Today by Nikki Haley

The current push to raise the federal debt limit is depressing. Worse is the fact that this same fiasco will keep happening. Washington simply isn't serious about getting spending under control.

We must be honest: Both Democrats and Republicans are responsible for America's spending crisis. They have both supported multitrillion dollar deficits that have brought us to a $31.6 trillion national debt and counting.

The nonstop spending binge of the past three years also gave us the soaring inflation that's still squeezing families and an economy that's stumbling toward recession.

We need a president who will do what no one has done to date: Stand up to the big spenders in both parties.

Return of earmarks was bad news for taxpayers
Look no further than the bipartisan and boneheaded decision to bring back earmarks in 2021. They're the gateway drug to higher spending, persuading lawmakers to vote for unaffordable trillion dollar bills because, hey, at least they got a cut. Congress has already passed $15.3 billion in earmarks and counting in fiscal year 2023, greasing the skids for ever-more-unaffordable spending blowouts.

Then there's welfare. Three years ago, Democrats and Republicans in Congress united to change Medicaid rules, adding tens of millions more people while dramatically expanding food stamps – with no strings attached. We should be saving taxpayer money by moving people from welfare to work, not the other way around.

Welfare state grew under COVID-19: Who will pay for this reckless spending? Your children will for decades.

Republicans and Democrats also love giving the American people's money to politically connected companies. They came together to hand tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to chip makers, which now have to do the Biden administration's far-left bidding on everything from child care to union pay rates.

Infrastructure bill was packed with corporate welfare
Their bipartisan "infrastructure" bill was chock full of corporate welfare, too, including billions on electric chargers for cars Americans can't afford.

Every special-interest bailout, handout and carve-out that Washington politicians create pads a lucky few pockets while picking everyone else's.

Give it up, Joe: From student loans to masks, why does Biden want to keep us in a perpetual 'emergency'?

Republicans deserve to be called out for getting the ball rolling on the pandemic spending binge. Democrats deserve blame for keeping it going, price tag be damned. They've taken the famous line, "Never let a crisis go to waste," to a whole new level, throwing billions of dollars at everything from labor unions to government entities that don't exist.

And with President Joe Biden set to unveil his latest budget on Thursday, you can bet Democrats will continue to push for even more spending that Americans don't need and can't afford.

Chances are slim that Democrats and Republicans get serious about spending at any point between now and the election in November 2024. By then, Washington will have spent another $11 trillion while driving the national debt even higher. The American people are counting on the next president to get spending under control.

As president, I will veto spending bills that don't put America on track to reach pre-pandemic spending levels. I will claw back the $500 billion in federal pandemic funding that hasn't been spent while going after up to $100 billion or more lost to fraud.

These fights will inevitably pit me against Republicans as well as Democrats, but I'm used to it. As governor of South Carolina, I took on both parties to stop wasteful spending and to put every spending vote on the record, a fundamental measure of accountability and protecting taxpayers. I won that fight.

It's time someone in Washington stood up for taxpayers and stopped America's slide toward bankruptcy.